I have a movie book called “Who Was That?” It is full of little headshots of character actors from the Thirties, Forties, and Fifties, sorted into categories: Loose Women, Society Dames, Thugs, Nebbishes. It’s a nice tribute to one of the great resources of the movie industry: the supporting actors and actresses who fill in the gaps, who give interest and flavor to the narrative. If a movie were cookie dough, the raisins and chocolate chips would be the stars; character actors would be the pinch of nutmeg or the splash of vanilla extract.
In the past week, we lost three very flavorful performers: Betty Garrett, Kenneth Mars, and Len Lesser.
Betty Garrett was the wise-ass cabbie in “On The Town” who keeps trying to seduce Frank Sinatra. She was also Mrs. Babish, the landlady on “Laverne & Shirley,” getting drunk on cooking sherry and playing the blues on the saxophone when Laverne gets arrested for shoplifting. She was hard-edged but funny, and she could sing.
Kenneth Mars was the wise old Danish magician in “Shadows And Fog”: “Yoomp! Yoomp into the mirror!” (No one did mock-Teutonic like Kenneth Mars.) He was the Mitteleuropean Inspector Kemp in “Young Frankenstein,” trying to keep young Doctor Fronkonsteen from “vollowink in his vater's vootshteps.” He was the big threatening-looking ex(?)-Nazi in “The Producer” who kept bursting into tears.
Len Lesser – well, he was in lots of stuff. But mostly he was Jerry Seinfeld’s Uncle Leo. “Jerry! Hello!”
Frankly, I’d rather be a character actor than a big-name star. Big-name stars have ups and downs, but character actors keep working come hell or high water. Directors may tire of Robert Downey Jr. or Julia Roberts, but they will always need a tough landlady, or a comedy Nazi, or a crazy uncle.
So remember Betty and Kenneth and Len kindly today.
And let's all vollow in their vootshteps.
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